Teach Soap

So I was checking out soap recipes on youtube and I came across one that says you should use lemon juice in the soap to I think it said counteract the lye or something. Which makes sense since it's an lemon juice is an acid. But is that something to consider doing to keep it from being lye heavy. It was also showing that you don't even have to melt your butters or heat your oils before instead just add it to the lye water. So is lemon juice something that would be a good idea and if so how much. Also do I in reality need to melt my hard oils or heat my oils?

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@!BuG!@

I wouldn't. Lemon juice will neutralize some of your lye, but you won't know how much. Add too much lemon juice and you will end up with a separated caustic mess. I prefer to melt my hard oils or heat my oils. For some people room temp soaping works, but there are times when the oils cool off too much, start to solidify and won't interact with all of your lye. You could end up with lye heavy soap, even if you weighed everything correctly.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Was that a soaping101 episode? Where she made lemon soap with lemon juice in a lemon peel mold? If so, she was showing that you can NOT make soap with lemon juice. In the end of that video she shows that the soap was ruined mushy goo.

If it wasn't, then I suggest checking out said video to see what happens when you add lemon juice to CP

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

Last year I made tomato soap, did a 3 % SF just to be safe since they are also acidic. It turned out fine but not a soap I would make on a regular basis. Your superfat is the 'insurance' you use to be sure that the soap is not lye heavy
I will use a hot lye\ room temp oils as my process at times but never put those oils into the lye. And when I use this process is becoming more specific. I also do not think this is a process for the beginner.
As for videos on you tube, there are some good ones and some you should not follow. You were right in posting the question to be sure you had viable information.
If you are looking for a lemon scented soap BB has a sweet Meyers lemon F|O that holds up quite well. Excellent F\O for blending.

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Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

http://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-body- ... mpoo-bars/

Citric acid to lower pH.

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Lesli Sagan
Avital's Apiaries
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No it wasn't a soaping101 video. I actually watched the whole thing and the soap looked nice after and seemed to them it was a good soap. I was just curious since it said 17 ounces of lye and it called for 2 cups of lemon juice. So I figured they probably should have just lowered the amount of lye.

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@!BuG!@

The pH of lemon juice is 2.0 because it contains an acid. The pH of lye is 12. If you lower the soap's pH too much it will separate into a caustic liquid. Here is a pH chart.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Is there a way to alter the pH of the lemon juice prior to adding to the batch? (Like adding a small amount of baking soda) Would this ruin the smell of the Lemon Juice? Would it prevent the lowering of the lye solution in the recipe?

Has anyone sucessfully used lemon/grapefruit juice for soaping (real juice not fragrance)

THanks

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

I guess the idea is to add sufficient extra lye to neutralize the citric acid and have left over to do the saponification. The problem will be that you don't know the concentration of citric acid in the lemon juice so you would have to guesstimate the excess lye requirement. Plus you will be making a fair bit of sodium citrate which may have some side effects on the final soap